ON THE OUTDOORS.

These bikers are hardy--or foolhardy

The long winters get seriously frigid in Alaska's second-largest city, but there are those who brave the outdoors

January 05, 2003|BY LEW FREEDMAN.

FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Bob Baker goes cross-country skiing every day snow covers the ground. He doesn't care if it is 20 degrees above zero or 50 degrees below zero, he is out there. He shrugs at extreme temperatures.

But the day Baker and a partner skied for 2 1/2 hours at minus-65 on the Chena River, he could tell the difference. Cold that sharp stings no matter what you are wearing.

"We lived through it," Baker said.

Not everyone would. Not without suffering frostbite or hypothermia, anyway. Those who live here in Alaska's interior must be hardy. And those among the 60,000 people who reside in the state's second-largest city, and choose to play outdoors year-round, must be hardier still. Or crazy.

Skiers, runners, dog mushers, even cyclists, routinely challenge the boundaries of credulity. Fairbanks, nearly 400 miles north of Anchorage, annually endures approximately six months of what the rest of the United States would consider winter. There is no other American city of this size that is this cold for so long. You can't live in Fairbanks sanely and be afraid of winter. But many can't abide an existence of dashing from home to car to office and back without inhaling the outdoors either.

Of course, you must be careful just what you do inhale. Deep breaths taken in subzero weather may lead to a scorched throat. And fingers, toes, nose are always in danger of being frostbitten.

"Cold is whatever you get used to," bicycle rider Rocky Reifenstuhl said.

Reifenstuhl, 50, competes in ultra-distance bicycle races, the longest so far being 350 miles. He must train many miles in order to contend, and that means he must ride year-round.

A geologist, Reifenstuhl rides his bike back and forth to work every day, rain or shine, snow or hail, warm or cold. He has pedaled in 56-below-zero weather, and every winter here runs into a good week of steady 40 below. For 15 years, his commute was 20 miles round-trip, though now it is down to 10. His fat-tire bike has studs implanted in the rubber for traction on the perpetual winter ice.

Reifenstuhl, who at 5 feet 8 inches and 145 pounds seems to have no body fat for insulation, does not wear heavy clothing. Joe Citizen running into the hardware store in a parka has more protective bulk on his torso. Instead Reifenstuhl dresses in layers of thin synthetics and windproof garments.

"If you put too much stuff on, you just end up sweating," he said. "Hands and feet are the big problem."

Reifenstuhl has thick hand-warmer gloves mounted on his bike's handlebars and can simply slip his paws into them. After all, he does create his own windchill factor while pedaling.

Besides his weekday commute, Reifenstuhl and his wife, Gail Koepf, join friends for a one- to three-hour Sunday afternoon ride. The noon starting time is judiciously chosen--during the heart of Fairbanks' winter, there are only four hours of light daily.

"We have one idiot in the club who shows up in sneakers at minus-20," Reifenstufhl said. "Ninety-nine percent of the people probably think we're nuts."

On a recent Sunday, with the temperature a balmy 10 above, a half-dozen riders gathered in the Goldstream Valley, on the outskirts of town, for the weekly ride. Reifenstuhl, fresh off collarbone surgery following a mishap with a careless driver who clipped him while he was riding his bike, listened to doctor's orders and sat this one out.

Tom Clark did not.

"I'll go to 30 below," Clark said. "That's the cutoff. It all has to do with how well you can keep the extremities warm."

But no windchill

How often does it dip to zero or below in Fairbanks? The man to ask is Jim Brader, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service who also organizes snowshoe races.

"That would be most of the time," Brader said.

Roughly 120 days from November through February.

"I can remember us going for months at a time and never going above zero," said Brader, 37, a Wisconsin native. "But we don't have wind."

Chicagoans who cringe when the wind roars in from Lake Michigan, will recognize what a blessing that is. Yet somehow that sounds like an Arizona resident downplaying the effects of 110 degrees in the shade with the comment, "It's a dry heat."

It's difficult to imagine what it would take to persuade a race promoter to postpone a Fairbanks event because of cold. Brader, who organizes a few snowshoe races each year, said most fliers touting competitions read "Regardless of temperature."